Covid 19 and real estate lease. The challenge of maintaining contractual balance in lease relationships in times of pandemic

Abstract

If there is a contract that illustrates the functioning of social and economic relations and the difficulty of maintaining the contractual balance between the contracting parties, that is, without a doubt, the lease contract. Through this agreement, access to housing is provided to a part of the population (residential lease), or the physical space necessary for the development of different activities (leases for use other than housing). The crisis caused by COVID 19 has given rise to intense regulatory activity focused on the area of housing rental and non-housing use, and specially designed to protect certain subjects, classified as vulnerable, from the circumstances arising from the stoppage of economic activity. However, the difficulties in applying these regulations, the exclusion of some subjects from their scope of protection and, above all, the prolongation of the health, economic and social crisis have highlighted the need to propose solutions that, beyond clear the uncertainty caused by the pandemic in the rental market, establish mechanisms that will es Covid tablish the contractual balance in exceptional situations such as the current one.